History

The Convection Engine was designed by Cid Highwind during his exile from the Pulotu for refusing to choose an aspect in his Manawapoutoro. Ironically, Highwind was serving in the Cloudstone Flight Core, unbeknownst to Vizier Atapa Skarra who was in direct control of that aspect of then Carnifex Quintillian's armed forces.

Later retelling the story of the invention, Highwind claimed that while he had always had a great respect for the Aether Hypothesis, he had the breakthrough idea while watching arwhals fly across the sky. He noticed that that the mouth on the underbelly of the arwhal was exhaling every time that the arwhals would rise through the aether. With the help of his fellow exile Cid Kamakawiwo'ole, he tracked and killed an arwhal to dissect it in an attempt to understand what internal process made it capable of processing aether in such a way that it enabled flight.

After developing the engine and having a successful flight from the heart of the Oncillian lands to the southernmost archipelago of the Pulotu, both Highwind and Kamakawiwo'ole were raised to 'Cid' status in the Flight Core, and they were tasked with a creation of an entire fleet of ships based on the new engine. This was infuriating to Atapa Skarra, but given the popularity that Highwind had with Carnifex Quintillian, Skarra could do nothing but abide Highwind's presence in the Flight Core.

In retrospect, the invention of the Convection Engine was successfully predicted by the Prophecies of Beral, in the chapter known as The Engrossed Titan and the Inquisitive Female.

Technical Aspects

The Convection Engine at it's core is a mechanical reproduction of the arwhals secondary respiratory system. Aether is sucked in through a set of vents at the bottom of the engine, and then run through an Ionneizer to reduce the density. After running through the Ionneizer, the lighter Aether (called Muirrang by Highwind), is stored in large containers and shot out of jets on the bottom of the containers into the ship's hull. The lighter Muirrang allows the ship to gracefully glide upwards through the aether, and ships descend by expelling the Muirrang from the hollow ship hull.

Originally, it was believed that Muirrang would either float out of the mesosphere or recondense into normal aether. However, Dwight Lansford and his followers believed it continued to condense after expulsion into a material far denser than standard aether. And it was this theoretical material they described as Dead Air.

—Frobbnotz Mippleplunk